Happy Holland Update and Thanksgiving!

Hi, Blogworld! Happy Thanksgiving! I am sitting in my new dorm room in the Young Judaea Youth Hostle in Jerusalem. Today was my first full day in the hostle, and I am just getting situated to the new living situation. I have an adventure to tell you about before we get to the current stuff, though. I just returned from an amazing week in Holland! Holland was the second Olami trip of the year, as I told you all about last time, and boy was it amazing. Amsterdam is just a gorgeous city, covered in canals and beautiful architecture. We had the perfect balance this trip of visiting amazing Dutch cultural sights such as the famous Rijks and Van Gogh Museums, cheese farms, Delft pottery factories and the like, and having a Jewish experience in Holland. We spent Shabbat with the Sephardic community of Holland, which was so phenomenal. The Spanish Portuguese shul has been standing in Holland since the 1600s, only a short while after Jews fled to Holland after the Spanish Inquisition. Of course, being in Amsterdam, it is impossible to ignore the history of the Holocaust there. We visited and toured Anne Frank's house, the Dutch Resistance Museum and the monument remembering the 104,000 Dutch Jews who perished during the World War 2 years. However, unlike visiting Poland which proved to be simply a nation of Jewish History, Holland is a nation where Judaism still thrives. Off to thanksgiving dinner, but more later, I promise. I am thankful for all you readers! Love, Gaby

Off to Amsterdam!

So, blog world. Foreign country part 2 of 4 is about to begin. I am sitting in Ben Gurion Airport about to head off to Holland to learn about the Sephardic Jewish life there, and just travel and have fun. Also, my time in Bat Yam is over, and when I come back from the Netherlands, I am going to start the Jerusalem Studies portion of my year here, meaning my year is a 1/3 over. HOW SCARY IS THAT! Crazy, right? Well anyway, I got a whopping 35 minutes of sleep last night so im off to rest a bit before take off, but more soon.

Peace and love, blog world!

A Day for the History Books.

Wow. Wow. Never in my life will I forget today. Watching Barack Obama give his acceptance speech on CNN from my couch in Bat Yam was one of the most monumental experiences of my life. I have been supporting his campaign for the last year, and have been very invested in it, donating time, money and energy to the man I feel can change our nation for the better as President. In all settings from Government class to couches at my Grandmother's house in Israel, I have heard every reason from A to Z of why I should not be supporting this guy--that America isn't ready for him, that he's too young, and that, how could I, a religious Jewish gir,l be suporting this character who mingles with people who aren't the friendliest to the Semites. But it was too late to get me off my Obama-supporting track. I knew this man was the right person to be the next president of the United States, to lead our nation out of this economic depression, and end this war on which we're spending literally millions of dollars a DAY unneccesarily. Most importantly, as cliche as this may sound, I genuinely feel that Barack Obama comes with a strong sense of HOPE for the American people. As I heard a news anchor on CNN say last night, "he proves that it is now true. All parents can now tell their children that they too can grow up to be president." For the majority of my life, or at least what I can recall, I have had a president by whom I have been less than inspired. I have always wondered what it would have been like to have watched JFK on stage, or sat by a radio and listened to fireside chats, or wished I was a little older during the Clinton era. But now, here is my once-in-a-lifetime president. I will be telling my children and my grandchildren how I heard Barack Obama speak twice before he became president, how I was interviewed on television supporting him, and how and we had a man named Jamal who worked for the Obama campaign living with my family for two months, with our only thing in common being our faith in this didactic Democrat from Chicago. Watching Barack Obama become our president elect at 6 am this morning moved me to tears. I cannot get off this high that our country is FINALLY taking the right steps to become the nation it once was, of which we can be proud to be citizens. Now, all I can do is count down the days until inoguration. I could not be prouder of having checked my ballot "Barack Obama," of spending many a Government class and Shabbat lunch arguing on his behalf, of waking up at 5 am to hear him speak in South Los Angeles, or of wearing my "I Love Barack Obama" sticker today. Yes we can, Yes we did, and Yes we will.